Are there Strasburg-Clyde similarities?

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David Clyde turned 55 earlier this year. It seems like only yesterday when he was fancied as the next coming of Sandy Koufax.

The left-hander from Westchester High School in Houston was drafted by the Rangers in 1973 and ushered right into the major leagues. Like Stephen Strasburg, he won his first game, making his debut in front of 37,000 fans, at the time the most ever at Arlington Stadium.

It was supposed to be a start or two in Texas, then off to the minors for grooming, but he pitched well in his first couple of starts and he started 18 games that season, finishing 4-8.

Overall, Clyde pitched parts of five major league seasons, closing out his career with an 18-33 record, far short of the phenom expectations. Clyde battled injuries and many of his struggles were attributed to the Rangers rushing him to the majors in an effort to bolster awful attendance numbers.

Strasburg had an incredible debut with the Washington Nationals earlier this week and appears poised for a promising career. He’s 21 years old, three years older than when Clyde made his debut. While Clyde was drafted out of high school, Strasburg had the college experience, which makes up for a year or so in minor league ball.

Jordan Lyles was drafted out of high school, but at 19, he’s pitching at AA Corpus Christi and is not likely to make it into a Houston uniform until next season at the earliest.

Clyde serves as a reminder of how rushing a young player through the system damages his potential.

Are there any similarities between Clyde and Strasburg? Do the Nationals run the risk of exploiting their new star pitcher?

The Nationals are saying the right things, that they will shut him down after a reasonable amount of innings. But if they add to their roster and stay in the hunt, will they be tempted?

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I suggested a few weeks back that Carlos Lee will get his 25-30 HRs and 100 RBI. Now that he’s started hitting a bit, those marks seem not only in sight, but quite reachable.

After his Wednesday grand slam, Lee is on a pace for 25 HRs and 92 RBI, that after a horrendous April that produced no HRs and 5 RBI.

• The Felipe Paulino critics club is losing members by the day. After his third straight sterling, 8-inning performance, Paulino has dropped his ERA to 3.82 and is making it look rather easy.

How long can he keep it up? He’s pitched 75 innings, but he’s also thrown over 100 pitches in each of his 12 starts but one. In fact, he’s averaging 110. To be sure, the pitch count doesn’t seem to bother Paulino. He looks as sharp and his velocity is still strong late in the game.

We must come away with at least one game in the Bronx. A yankee sweep would destroy our momentum. One win in New York and two out of three from KC and we have a 6-4 trip which is certainly satisfying considering our opponents. We are 6-2 since I called for a 17-8 run. Keep it up Boys.

And this New York Times article from February 14, 1915 discusses, among other pitchers, Albert Spalding, who won 56 games in 1875, out of 63 games pitched. Just be sure to stop reading when it starts talking about the Westminster Kennel Club Show in which foreign dogs have been entered. It’s over by then.

Hopefully we are seeing signs of progress that he will be able to maintain. Yes, we expected that sooner; or at least many people seem to have. But remember, he lost both progress and are strength the year before last when he had that problem with a pinched nerve (I think that was the prognosis) and ended up missing the whole season. So he had to take a step backward and restart his progress last year.

No kidding about Q – after hitting a dinger and a double – he is hitting .264 for the year. Have always loved his defense, but never expected this on the offensive side. Is he using that Cushing-juice?

I remember an article in SI a few years ago focusing on the number of pitches prior to age 25, or something like that. One of the points was that Ryan wasn’t really overworked until he was a little older and better able to take the increased workload. For example, the first year Ryan exceeded 200 innings was 1972, the year he turned 26. Warren Spahn was also 26 the year he first pitched over 200 innings and he went on to win 363 games over his career. Gaylord Perry’s first year to throw over 200 innings was also the year he turned 26. Not to beat a dead horse but Randy Johnson didn’t pitch over 200 innings until the year he turned 27.

On the other hand, Larry Dierker threw 233 innings as a 21 year old and 305 innings as a 22 year old. No surprise he was done by age 30 and had arm troubles for years before that. Doc Gooden was 19 years old during his rookie year, throwing 218 innings, then 276 the next year. He too was done early. Then again, Greg Maddux had a heavy workload starting at age 22 and lasted a long time.

I realize these are anecdotes and there are exceptions. Strasburg is 21 and will need to be careful.

Prior’s motion sounds obviously bad, but hindsight is 20/20, after all. Terms like “scapular loading” and “inverted W” (regarding the positioning of his elbow in the motion) would indicate that what he was doing was pretty unhealthy over the long-term.

David Clyde was quite simply the greatest high school pitcher I have ever seen. He was a man among boys. The closest thing I have seen to him was when I watched LeBron James play in a high school basketball game. He was that dominating. Beautiful, powerful delivery. Great control.

Clyde pitched in the state semifinals the day before, which is why he didn’t start the state championship game in 1973.

You have to remember that Strasburg pitched in college and the minors, while Clyde was thrown to the wolves to help save the Rangers’ attendance woes. That accounts for some maturity. Strasburg seems to have command of three pitches. I only recall Clyde’s fastball and curve, but he may have had more. I don’t think Clyde throws as hard as Strasburg, but he also never had the chance to develop his pitching skills against better competition than high school. After all, a #8 hitter in the bigs likely hit .350-.400 in high school.

Daveb is right in that they also overworked his arm. Had he come out in this era, things might have happened differently. How Clyde was handled became an example for organizations, one which probably influenced how the Nats have handled Strasburg.

Re Paulino – keep looking forward, not at his past record. Hopefully he continues his consistency. Nobody should be asking for more than what he has given us in the past month or so.

Don’t look now, but Quintero is hitting over .250. If he can hit in the .260s, he could be an answer with his arm and defense.

Following Alan’s points regarding the insane number of innings thrown by some durable pitchers, I’m thinking it’s possible they had better workout regimens. Dan P. noted that Mark Prior is eight years younger than Brian Moehler, a player who is often cited as having the best workout routine on the team.

How possible is it that the pitchers who were “ruined” by pitching too much were perhaps more interested in enjoying the good life afforded by their Major League status?

It could be interesting to see the career stats of pitchers from “back then” who always worked the amount of innings that nobody does today.

I do not question that an increased pitching workload on a young arm slightly increases the risk of an arm injury, but by no means does limiting innings and pitch counts for a young hurler eliminate the risk of such an injury. There most definitely will come a day when a can’t miss phenom like Strasburg breaks down in spite of extreme kid glove handling (the Nats’ own Jordan Zimmermann may himself be a much lower-profile example of such a case), and when it happens (a few times over), the curently vogue practice of limiting innings and pitch counts will draw more scrutiny and we will start to see teams heading in the opposite philosophical direction a la what Nolan Ryan has been preaching lately (but perhaps not necessarily fully implementing in the Rangers’ farm system). While I wish the kid no harm, I cannot help but think that at some level the proverbial baseball gods figure to be angered by the Nationals’ extreme overmanagement of Strasburg. There are some similarities to the David Clyde situation from the standpoint of how the Nats lined up (to manipulated) Strasburg’s minor league starts and major league debut to maximize ticket and associated sales revenues of they and their affiliates (at least the Nats didn’t have Strasburg debut on June 4 so that he could pitch the opening and closing games of their current 6-game home stand). The most obvious differences between Strasburg and Clyde are that Strasburg: 1) has extensive collegiate and international experience, 2) is set for life financially by bonus money alone and thus doesn’t have to do anything he doesn’t want to, and 3) is managed and advised by Scott Boras’ empire. I am also rather certain that major league baseball didn’t immediately remove and authenticate the baseball that David Clyde threw on his first major league pitch, and I was rather amused when they did so with Strasburg’s first pitch baseball. If I were the Pirates’ McCutchen and knew of that plan ahead of time, I definitely would have been first pitch hacking – feel free, MLB, to authenticate that baseball that I just hit for a double off of the second coming.

To me it`s not an apple to apple comparison. Clyde was rushed to the majors just a couple of weeks after his high school graduation. The four additional years Strasburg has had to mature mentally as well as physicaly are definitely an advantage. I bet there is an established support team around Strasburg to coach him, mentor him and provide guidance that probably was absent with Clyde. Time will tell but I like this kids chances.

I will concede that Wood had problems before Baker grabbed onto him. He probably was doomed to have more problems, but having Baker as a manager certainly did not help.

As far as Prior goes – he threw about 160 IP between minors and majors in 2002 up to 211+ in 2003 at the age of 21. But not only the number of innings, but going from Don Baylor to Baker – the pitch counts increased, also. Pulling this from an old article on yahoo.com ” ….though the universal consensus is that Cubs manager Dusty Baker abused Prior at the end of the 2003 season simply because he knew no better. In Prior’s last nine games, including three in the playoffs, he logged the following pitch counts: 131, 129, 109, 124, 131, 133, 132, 115, 119. House (a sports doctor) believes the overuse by Baker doomed Prior. Eight pitchers this decade have thrown 109 or more pitches in nine straight games, and half of them needed reconstructive arm surgery.”

Anyways – there are other folks who say that Prior’s motion doomed him to future problems – but its a shame he was basically done at the age of 25. (Note – even today Prior is 8 years younger than Brian Moehler).

In 1973, 39 pitchers had more than 240 innings pitched. The leader was Wilbur Wood with 359. Note there were 7 pitchers with more than 300 innings pitched, including Ryan with 326. Ryan started 39 games and completed 26 of them. Gaylord Perry started 41 games and completed 29 of them, pitching 344 innings

So for better or for worse, the world is different now. Pitch counts are much more closely monitored. I know the issue has been studied in great detail, but Ryan and Perry each lasted long enough to win over 300 games, so the high pitch counts didn’t affect them.

To answer the question, I don’t think Clyde is a good analog for Strasburg. Maybe Mark Prior, or Doc Gooden, or even Larry Dierker, but not Clyde.

Carlos Lee only needed to be “good” for one pitch last night, and he nailed it. I was concerned before that AB because he, Pence, and Feliz were all 0-fer. Then the Rocks walked Berkman, and the rest, as they say, is history.

As far as Paulino goes, the sky would appear to be the limit. Brentw (et al) makes a salient point here: Paulino’s got the body to do this type of thing with ease. Obviously, averaging 110 pitches is not a huge deal for him now, or else Mills would be curtailing that.

I think someone else pointed out that Mills has confidence in Paulino; other managers before Mills might not have let Paulino start this long after he struggled in the beginning of the season. It’s paid off for Paulino, and in due time maybe he’ll get the run support for his personal success to translate to team success.

look up Kerry Wood and Mark Prior

I did indeed; Kerry Wood missed a month in 1998 with “elbow soreness” and had Tommy John surgery which caused him to miss the 1999 season.

His manager that year? Jim Riggleman.

Any gaffes on his part re: Strasburg will likely get him fired faster than the cannon at the circus. So he’s probably going to handle Strasburg with kid gloves anyway, even if there wasn’t a team-wide mandate on keeping the kid fresh.

Nice to go back in time a bit every once in a while. I can relate to that time as I am the same age as David Clyde. I was a very good baseball player who was offered a scholarship to a big 10 school. After one year I was gone due to being very immature and partying too much. That seemed to be the way of the day for many kids coming out of high school. Lots of pressure on a kid to do well in baseball. I didn’t have the pressure that David Clyde had but the other off the field things were the same. Eddie Chiles was a maniac of an owner. Today, it’s different. There is a different system in place to nuture and bring along the top draft picks. Still lots of pressure today but not in the same way. There are many more good role models to emulate and the money has changed focus as well, both for owners and players. I wish good luck to Strasburg.

Guys like Lincecum and Oswald put a lot of torque on their small-medium type frame to achieve the high velocity that they throw. I imagine in 10 years Lincecum will experience some of the groin,hip or back problems that Roy does. Felipe on the other hand is large with strong legs that allows him to stay in his mechanics and put less stress on his arm and body.His foundation is a lot like Ryan and Clemons which allows him to throw many pitches at high velocities. Felipe is trasitioning to the Big Leaguer we thought he could be. Pitched out of a couple of jams in the past he would have wilted. Realizes he can make pitches at certain times to get out of trouble and executes. We are lucky this guys not eligble for arbitration because they recognize your performance and not just your record. ( Ask Wandy )

It is refreshing to see Paulino pitching well. Considering the fact that the Astros won’t be contending any time soon we don’t have to worry that Drayton neglects pitching in the offseason because he pencils in Paulino as our #2 starter due to one decent season. Don’t get me wrong, I hope he continues to develop into a reliable starter and his recent string of success leads me to believe that he may very well but it is a long season and pitchers go through ups and downs.

Hopefully, Norris can get back in the rotation soon and get some work as I think he needs more experience in the rotation before his make or break year next season in terms of whether he is a starter or reliever. I want to give him every chance in the world as a starter but if he was to continue to be average to below average through next season he should be moved to the bullpen as I think he has the two good pitches with location on the two in order to be a solid late inning guy. It certainly wouldn’t hurt to transition him in 2012 considering Lindstrom will be in his final year of team control if the Astros don’t trade him before that.

In regards to Strasburg, the Nationals have not rushed the kid in any way. He absolutely dominated in the minors so it was a waste to keep him there. They allowed him to begin the year there and have him throw much less stressful innings to start the year. While he will have some definite early success given his maturity as a pitcher and, of course, his stuff I expect him to hit somewhat of a bump later in the year as teams see him a few times and he has to make adjustments. The kid could be one of the great ones as he has just about every quality you could want out of a pitcher.

Your point on whether the Nationals will be tempted to push his innings limit if they are in contention for the playoffs is a good one. I would expect they will certainly stretch his work which is why they should look to keep his innings and pitch count limited now while the season is still relatively young. You should recall that they basically shut him down once he was signed which allowed him to rest his arm for this season.

The Nationals have a nice looking young core with Strasburg in the fold, drafting Bryce Harper, the rookie in the pen drafted last year, and the cornerstone in Ryan Zimmerman. They appear to have a decent young SS in Ian Desmond and Dunn is already talking extension with them. We should also not forget about Jordan Zimmerman who is coming off TJ surgery but was very impressive last year. The Nationals may not have a ton of minor league talent but they sure have some top end talent and some money to spend on free agents.

Hopefully, as long as the Nats don’t hire Dusty Baker to manage (look up Kerry Wood and Mark Prior)- Mr. Strasburg will do just fine. With pitching there is no guarantee – but you have to think that even though Strasburg has made it to the bigs at a fairly early age – that the additional experience both in college and in the minors have helped him and more importantly, he is a 21 year old man – not a 18 year old kid like Clyde was. If they don’t follow the proven formula of not over extending young arms – then shame on them.

It is a shame that the Astros offense was in a sleep walking mode through all of April and May – because their pitching sure was good enough to keep them near .500. I almost fell out of the chair last night when they put Lance on to pitch to Carlos in the 10th. (Of course, Carlos had been 1 for 15 against that pitcher).That might have worked 3 weeks ago – but Carlos and the bases loaded = bad news for the opposition throughout his career.

Paulino is a hoss. His last 7 starts – going backwards:

8 IP 2 R

8 IP 1 R

8 IP 0 R

6 IP 2 R

6 IP 2 R

4.2 IP 7 R (one clunker)

7 IP 1 ER

He seems to really be coming into his own (really love his combo of big fastball and nasty breaking stuff). Add in much better control and improving location in the zone and he is fun to watch.

He certainly seems to have the body to pitch a bunch of innings and to have 100+ pitch count. And looking past his record – he sure does not pitch like a #5 starter. He is not getting the wins – but especially the last month the team has started winning his starts, even if they have to wait a few innings after he leaves to score.

Clyde threw 148 (official) innings in 1973, as a high schooler, taking his team as far as the State Championship finals. He couldn’t pitch in the big game because he had been used so much thoughout the regular season and playoffs. He then threw 93 more innings once with the Rangers. He was basically toast by the end of his first partial season. Young and impressionable, Clyde also quickly feel into a lifestyle then popular with major leaguers, one that had him spending much more time in a bar than at the gym.

Clyde remains the poster child for how to screw up a major league prospect. No way they let the same happen to Strasburg. Far too much long term value. That was lost on Bob Short back in 73.